


resistance to flow

by viverella



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Friends With Benefits To Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Post-Time Skip, Snapshots, sorry folks no actual sex bc the author is a weenie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29293992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viverella/pseuds/viverella
Summary: Miya Osamu is fifteen when he meets Suna Rintarou, sixteen when an idle thought makes a chance appearance in his mind that Suna’s quite pretty when he laughs.He’s twenty when he kisses Suna for the first time, twenty-one when they first sleep together. They don’t really talk about it, but Osamu finds that maybe he didn’t quite expect them to, and them sleeping together doesn’t really change anything, besides.He’s twenty-two when he realizes that this might be a problem.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 38
Kudos: 181
Collections: SunaOsa, SunaOsa Valentine's Exchange





	resistance to flow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Slumber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/gifts).



> for the sunaosa valentine's exchange on twt 🤗
> 
> fun story about this fic: I got reassigned kinda late in the process and did I need to write smth from scratch to make an acceptable gift? probably not. did I do it anyways? yes because I have no sense of self-preservation and I saw 'friends to lovers' and 'fwb' in the list of prompts and my lizard brain immediately jumbled those up and went FWB TO LOVERS???? and fixated on this Concept and refused to let go. even though I am, as the tags say, a complete weenie when it comes to writing any kind of sexual content so sorry to get ur hopes up if u came here expecting something steamy I'm not ur girl for that aldfjglkdfg but anyway 
> 
> hope u like this, slumber!! happy (early) valentine's day!! 🥰💕
> 
> (title borrowed from the richard siken poem quoted in part in the section headers below)

**_i._**  
  
_a hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail._  
  
  


Miya Osamu is fifteen when he meets Suna Rintarou, sixteen when an idle thought makes a chance appearance in his mind that Suna’s quite pretty when he laughs and he should maybe do it more often. Osamu never mentions it to anyone, and it passes, and that suits him just fine. He doesn’t think anything of it then.

Osamu is twenty when he kisses Suna for the first time, twenty-one when they first sleep together, easy physical intimacy slipping in next to years of inside jokes and bad selfies and shared meals. They don’t really talk about it, but Osamu finds that maybe he didn’t quite expect them to, and them sleeping together doesn’t really change anything, besides. They don’t go on dates and they don’t get all mushy. They just hang out every now and again when they happen to be in the same city, like they always have, only now, sometimes, Osamu goes home with the feeling of Suna’s mouth against his skin and a ring of hickeys around his neck. He doesn’t think anything of _that_ either. 

He’s twenty-two when he realizes that this might be a problem.

  
  
  


The first time they sleep together, it’s an accident. Sort of. Maybe. It’s an accident like falling through a thin patch in the ice is an accident. Like being pulled into the deep by a riptide is an accident. Like standing over the event horizon of a black hole and getting sucked in is an accident. What he means is, he didn’t really start the day with the intention, per se, but at some point, he realizes that he was probably way past halfway there already. 

The first time, it’s on a cool day in March, and between Atsumu and their friends and their friends’ friends, something like half of the V.League is packed into Onigiri Miya for an end of season party. There’s alcohol being passed around and war stories from the season being traded back and forth and, every now and again, food being thrown as people shout over each other and squabble about inane things. It’s one of Osamu’s favorite times of the year, even though the cleanup is always a huge pain, and he feels warm and content as he makes onigiri to fulfill increasingly, comically complicated orders as the night drags on, exchanging them over the counter for beer and gossip. 

Suna asks that night, like he always does, if he can crash at Osamu’s place, and Osamu makes a tired joke about his shitty apartment not measuring up to the standard of living Suna’s gotten used to, rich and famous as he is, and Suna rolls his eyes but stays anyways. Suna stays and helps Osamu clean up after everyone else leaves, like he always does, and Osamu wonders as Suna washes dishes next to him if Suna will kiss him, like he only sometimes does, when it suits him. 

That night, Suna does kiss him, shoves him up against the wall as soon as they walk into Osamu’s apartment, pushy and insistent like he doesn’t know how else to want anything. This has happened before, and Osamu doesn’t have to think about it, kisses him back on instinct, like muscle memory, hands tangling in Suna’s messy hair. 

But then Suna’s long, clever fingers are slipping up under his shirt to run along the length of his spine, and he’s pressing in closer, closer when Osamu makes a soft noise at the back of his throat, and then his hands are dipping below the waistband of Osamu’s pants. This hasn’t happened before, but Osamu still doesn’t really think about it, just knows that in this moment, this is something that he wants. He doesn’t think about any of it at all until later, which was probably his first mistake.

  
  
  


Suna sneaks behind Osamu’s booth before a match in Oita to steal an onigiri or two and complain about having skipped lunch, and he laughs when Osamu frowns and tries to swat his hand away. 

“You know, for a professional athlete, you’re really shit at taking care of yourself,” Osamu gripes, but he’s only maybe half as annoyed as he sounds. 

Suna grins and takes a bite of the pilfered onigiri, reaching over to pinch Osamu’s cheek. “That’s why I keep you around, isn’t it?” he says, teasing. He talks with his mouth full and somehow his smile is still pretty. Osamu rolls his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore.

It’s early enough before the match that the arena’s not too crowded yet, but Suna’s presence by the Onigiri Miya booth still draws attention anyways because he’s already dressed in bright EJP yellow, because he’s one of the people they’re all here to see, after all. A litany of soft murmurs and pointing and a child boldly asking if Suna works for Osamu now. Suna laughs. 

“Just dropping by to harass an old friend,” he says lightly. 

The collar of Suna’s jacket shifts just so as he leans over past Osamu, reaching across him to swipe another onigiri before Osamu can stop him, and from this angle, Osamu can just see the faint hickey on Suna’s collarbone, only halfway to fading. Suna’s gone before Osamu manages to snap his thoughts back into motion, and Suna’s waggling his fingers in a cheeky goodbye as he trots off to find the rest of his team, shoving his spoils into his jacket pockets.

Later, when the arena is empty and deserted and Osamu’s packing away the last of his things to make the drive back home, Suna finds him again, hands eager and needy now instead of light and playful. Suna crowds him up against the wall in some back corner, hidden away like there’s something he selfishly wants to keep for himself, and Osamu almost wants to ask, _hey, Suna, how many friends have known you like this? Is it just me? Do I know you better than anyone else?_ But he doesn’t, just swallows the feeling back down to make room for Suna’s tongue in his mouth. The feeling doesn’t come back.

  
  
  


The second time, it’s on purpose. They’re leaving an izakaya in Hiroshima, and on the walk back to Suna’s apartment, Suna looks at him out of the corner of his eye, mouth turned up into a sly smirk, baiting him, daring him to do something, like it’s a puzzle, like it’s a game. Osamu hates losing. Suna knows this. 

The second time, it’s less impulsive and more impatient, and as Suna shoves him back on the bed, he looks at Osamu with sharp, dangerous eyes like some kind of wild animal, grin like a knife’s edge. Suna touches him like he’s trying to consume him whole, greedy and possessive, and Osamu has half a mind to let him, because there’s this feeling sitting low in his gut, this obsessive need to have this, Suna’s deft hands gliding over his skin like he’s trying to find the best place to sink his claws in, and this, Suna’s voice in his ear, a low rumble through his chest, and this, Suna’s mouth tracing a path down his body, and Osamu wants more and more and more.

  
  
  


“This is a terrible idea,” Atsumu says to him one day in between complaining about how Osamu never tells him anything and _ew_ this is _not_ the kind of gossip he wants to hear when he’s catching up with people at matches and why did he have to hear all of this from Komori Motoya of all people, anyways. 

Osamu sighs. “Yeah, full offense, but I don’t really wanna hear it from you,” he says. It’s close to closing on a Tuesday night at Onigiri Miya and the shop is basically deserted, and Osamu’s debating the merits of messing up his brother’s order on purpose.

Atsumu scoffs and throws a crumpled napkin at Osamu. “Don’t be such an ass. I’m trying to help you,” Atsumu whines, crossing his arms and slouching down in his seat in a way that Osamu knows means that he might genuinely be worried.

It’s sweet, in a way, Osamu supposes, but he still says pointedly, “I didn’t ask for your help, and I don’t need it. Now drop it before I drop your dinner on the floor.”

Atsumu pouts but thankfully listens, and in a moment, he’s complaining about something else entirely, something about that dumb new serve he won’t stop bringing up every time they talk, and Osamu lets himself tune out. 

The thing is, Osamu knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, in a vague, unformed way, that it probably _is_ sort of a terrible idea, sleeping with someone who was only ever supposed to be a good friend, on their best days. That it could end up making things too complicated or even if it didn’t right away, would always run the risk of it. That everything he’s ever learned about anything tells him that if they’re not careful, someone’s going to get hurt, and Osamu’s never been particularly good at being careful. But then the next time he sees Suna, he looks up at Suna and for a moment, he thinks that he catches Suna looking at him like Osamu’s a thing that could break if Suna just pushed too hard, and Osamu thinks that maybe the two of them can learn to be gentle.

  
  
  


The third time makes it a habit. But well, Osamu thinks, he’s gotten in the habit of doing worse things and everything’s sort of shaken out okay. This’ll be fine too, in the end. Probably.

* * *

**_ii._**  
  
_a hammer is not a hammer when it is sleeping._  
  
  


Osamu doesn’t know if Suna sees other people when they’re not together. He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t care to. _That’s_ what would make things complicated, keeping track of all of that, worrying about it, and Osamu’s never been one to make things more difficult than they need to be. And that was the point, anyway. Simplicity. Ease. A freedom from the kind of object permanence it takes to sustain anything real. They’ve never been the kind of friends who needed to talk every day, and if Osamu forgets to text or call Suna for three weeks or a month because he got busy and lost track of time, Suna doesn’t throw a fit about it because he often does the same. There are no expectations beyond how they’ve always been. Osamu likes that about them.

Osamu knows that he doesn’t, himself, see other people, and he tells himself it’s because he’s so busy all the time, getting up at the crack of dawn to prep for a new day and staying well into the night tidying up the day’s messes. He drags himself home most nights dead tired and the thought of trying to muster up the energy to go out in the first place, much less pick someone up, is too much for him. He’s content to spend his days buried in his work, busying himself with this little shop that he loves so much, and every now and again, when Suna’s in town or Osamu crosses paths with him out on the job, they hook up. Simple. Easy. Low effort. And if lately, Osamu wakes up in the morning and looks over at Suna sleeping next to him and feels suddenly overcome with the impulse to do something stupid and sweet like brush his hair back or press a kiss to his temples, well, he tells himself it’s all in his head. A trick of the light, maybe. Something left over from a dream he hasn’t quite woken up from yet. 

He believes it, mostly.

  
  
  


“Hey, Suna.”

It’s the second Monday of the month, which means Onigiri Miya is closed for the day, and Osamu will spend the afternoon driving out to Kita’s farm to pick up a new batch of rice from the most recent harvest and maybe some fresh vegetables, if Yumie-san is feeling generous, but for now, he’s sitting on his couch with a cup of hot tea because Suna’s in town through the end of the day. Next to him, Suna’s curled up with cold feet tucked under Osamu’s thigh, sipping coffee and reading a book with a cracked spine and yellowed pages. Osamu forgets exactly what Suna said when he asked, but it’s something about looking for one thing and ending up with something else entirely, something Osamu’s never heard of before and probably never will again when Suna’s done with it, never one to linger too long or reread. The remains of the lunch Osamu made them still sits on the low table near them, waiting to be tidied up, and Suna frowns a little as he’s reading, a slight furrow between his brows. It’s kind of cute, Osamu thinks idly. He pokes at Suna’s knee. 

“Suna.”

Suna marks his place in his book with a finger and tips his head to one side, raising his eyebrows at Osamu. The look on his face is of mild, lazy interest, and the warm sun streaming through the big window on the far end of the room reflects in his eyes, lighting them up with flecks of gold. 

“Hmm?”

For a brief, terrifying moment, Osamu can’t quite tell what the next words out of his mouth will be. There’s something unwieldy that he’s been turning over and over his mouth for some time now, this thing that’s been sitting squarely in his chest ever since he first noticed it maybe a month ago. It makes him feel, sometimes, like he can’t quite catch his breath. It makes him feel like he’s doing something he shouldn’t. He presses his thumb against a bruise Suna left on his hip this morning and thinks better of it, squashes it all down for another day. 

“I’m going to Kita-san’s this afternoon to pick up some stuff,” Osamu ends up saying. He lifts his thumb away from the bruise and returns his hand to cradling his mug, the ceramic warm against his cold skin. “Wanna come with? I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”

Suna hums, considering. “You driving?” he asks, something playful and teasing slipping into his voice.

Osamu narrows his eyes. “You have something to say to me about my driving?” 

Suna laughs, high and bright. Osamu has heard Suna laugh a thousand times before, in a thousand different ways, in response to a thousand different things, but for whatever reason, on this warm Monday afternoon, Osamu hears it like a punch in the gut. Suna laughs, and what Osamu hears is _don’t trust me to trust you like that_. It smarts in a way he doesn’t like, but he tries not to fixate on it too much.

  
  
  


It’s late, and Osamu knocks on the door of Suna’s apartment in Hiroshima before he can psych himself out about it, listening restlessly as the hollow sound rings loudly in the empty hallway. It’s maybe the longest ten seconds of Osamu’s life waiting for the door to open, and when it does, Osamu feels his breath snag at the back of his throat. Suna’s hair is damp from a shower and brushed back in a careless sweep away from his eyes, and he’s wearing an old Inarizaki sweatshirt that Osamu’s pretty sure Suna stole from him, because he recognizes the hole in the left elbow and the small bleach stain by the collar. Suna blinks at him.

“Osamu,” he says, sounding about as surprised as should be expected given the givens, because Osamu’s never done this before, just shown up on Suna’s doorstep without any kind of warning or explanation, because this isn’t what they do, one way or another. It’s never been like that.

“Hey,” Osamu says, putting on his most winning smile and trying to ignore the way his heart is crawling its way up to his throat. He wonders if this was a bad idea. Suna could be busy or, god forbid, have company over. Osamu supposes that he didn’t really think this through before doing it either.

Suna lets out a small huff of a laugh and raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms across his chest and shifting his weight. 

“What are you doing here?” Suna asks, and there’s an edge to Suna’s voice that Osamu can’t quite place, but at least he sounds more amused than anything else. 

Osamu opens his mouth to answer but finds that he can’t decide what to say. He’d say he was in the area, except that it’d be half a lie because even after he wrapped up with work at a V.League match earlier, he was about as far from his own apartment as Suna’s. He’d say he just dropped by on a whim, except that’d be kind of a lie too, because he’d woken up almost a week ago seized by this inexplicable urge to see Suna and hadn’t found a convincing enough excuse to talk himself into actually doing it till now. And either way, Suna knows that Osamu lives something like two hours away from him by train, four if he’s driving, even more if there’s traffic, and Osamu can’t pretend like he doesn’t. 

After a moment’s consideration, instead of trying to come up with an answer that will ultimately fall flat because between the two of them Osamu’s decidedly not the better liar, Osamu pushes his way into Suna’s apartment and tugs him close by the collar and kisses him, if only to stop himself from saying something sappy and sentimental and completely senseless like _I missed you_. Suna makes a soft, surprised sound, but shuts the door behind Osamu and grins when Osamu’s hands slip under his shirt to trace his sides. Suna’s not turning him away, and Osamu’s surprised to find himself relieved by the thought, and then he’s surprised that he’s surprised. It’s not like this is something new or out of the blue, this way that he looks at Suna sometimes and feels winded like he’s still in high school and he’s just run twenty laps around the gym. He’s known that it’s been like this for some time now, even if he refuses to put a name to this feeling that has a stranglehold on his heart. It’s not like it’s something new, but it still takes Osamu till the next day, on his long drive home, for him to finally admit to himself that fine, _fine_ , so he actually likes Suna. So he wants to be more than just a body to push against in the night. 

So what. He can get over it, if he has to. He has to.

  
  
  


For his twenty-third birthday, Suna gives Osamu the unavoidable reality that he’s well and truly in over his head. It’s too late, he realizes—he’s already fallen through the ice, been pulled out to sea, tumbled to eternity in the eye of a galaxy. Suna drops by Osamu’s apartment just after midnight, day of, with a box of cupcakes and a handful of candles. Osamu has to be up in six hours to open up shop and work for half the day before handing off his responsibilities to his assistant manager so he can spend the afternoon with Atsumu and go out to dinner with his family, but he smiles and lets Suna in anyways. Osamu eats more cupcakes than he should and when he kisses Suna, Suna tastes like red velvet and cream cheese frosting, and Suna laughs against Osamu’s mouth. And for one reason or another, it’s not like the other times. Suna, stubborn, demanding Suna, who’s never given an inch that Osamu hasn’t fought for, for just a moment, kisses Osamu so softly and sweetly that Osamu doesn’t know what to do with himself. Suna touches him with gentle hands like Osamu’s made of glass, and it aches so much that for a minute, Osamu almost worries that he might cry. 

But the moment passes. The moment passes and then Suna’s all over him like he usually is, climbing into Osamu’s lap with a kind of hunger that Osamu’s come to associate with Suna and Suna alone, and in the end, what Osamu ends up remembering is this: 

Suna’s eyes, dark and intent and heavy-lidded, and Osamu thinks, _this isn’t the kind of thing you get over so easily_. Suna’s mouth at the hollow of his throat, and Osamu thinks, _oh god, I might really be in love with him_. Suna’s hands gripping his hips, hard enough to bruise, and Osamu thinks, _I need to stop this, before it’s too late_.

  
  
  


It dawns on Osamu somewhere along the line that Suna never kisses him except as a lead-in to something more. There must’ve been a time when he did, Osamu thinks, because he has about a year’s worth of memories of Suna’s mouth on his from before they started sleeping together, but it feels a little like a dream. It feels unreal, like all the many soft, sweet things Suna has murmured into his skin feel unreal, like all the things they pretend haven’t been said when the morning comes, all the things Osamu can never quite convince himself that Suna actually means.

 _Baby_ , Suna calls him sometimes, during, whispered into the crook of Osamu’s neck like a secret. _I missed you, baby, I want you, I think about you all the time_.

Osamu often wonders if they’re thinking about the same thing.

* * *

**_iii._**  
  
_i woke up tired of being the hammer._  
  
  


There’s a recurring dream Osamu’s been having for the past year. 

In it, he’s running, and there’s a long rope suspended next to him like a kind of odd barrier, like a guideline. It’s dark all around him, but he can see that it extends forwards and backwards into infinity, never-ending. He’s running and he’s got his hand on the rope, letting it lead him forwards, chasing after something out of sight, and all of a sudden, the rope is yanked from his hand, slipping out of his grasp quick enough to give him rope burn, and then there’s nothing, just darkness. It’s like everything mooring him to the earth has vanished altogether, and he’s falling. As he falls, he thinks to himself that maybe someone will catch him, but he always wakes before anyone can, sometimes to an empty bed, other times to the sight of Suna curled up into his pillows, messy black hair fanned out around his head as he sleeps, blissfully unaware of any ghosts that might be haunting Osamu. 

Osamu thinks, sometimes, about that old adage about it being good luck to tell someone about your bad dreams and wonders if he’s been cursed because he can’t seem to say anything that matters. And sometimes, he reaches out, hand halfway to Suna’s shoulder before he stops and lets his hand fall back down. But most of the time, he just burrows deep under the blankets again instead and curls in close, breathing in the smell of Suna’s skin as Suna shifts in his sleep to drape his long limbs over Osamu. Osamu presses his face into the curve of Suna’s neck and feels something settle in his chest.

Osamu knows that this probably isn’t what friends do, especially not friends with an arrangement that’s supposed to be as unattached as theirs, but if Suna minds, he never says anything about it, and Osamu never asks.

  
  
  


There’s a game that that Osamu feels like he keeps losing, even though he’s pretty sure he’s the only one playing it. 

“Hey, Suna,” Osamu says, this feeling sitting right on the tip of his tongue, begging to get out. 

Suna hums and looks up from his phone. “Hmm?”

There’s a long pause where Osamu just sort of looks at Suna, taking him in, cataloging the details like this could be the last time. The slight purse to his lips as he tries to suss Osamu out. The way his eyes narrow as he watches Osamu watch him. The rhythmic _tap-tap-tap_ of his slender fingers against his thigh, waiting. His hair is getting long again, Osamu notices, and he wants to reach out and smooth it down where it curls up around his ears. 

Osamu shakes his head and looks away. 

“Never mind.”

  
  
  


Osamu almost tries to end it, once or twice, because he knows, he _knows_ in this sinking way in the pit of his stomach that whatever it is that he’s doing with Suna, whatever excuses he wants to tell himself, it’s not good for him, at the end of the day. But every time he thinks to try, Suna will look at him with cheeks rosy from the winter chill and smile, chin ducked behind a thick scarf that Osamu gave him for Christmas back in high school, or he’ll laugh at something Osamu says, one of those rare laughs that gathers at the corners of Suna’s eyes, or he’ll send Osamu yet another unflattering picture of his neighbor’s chubby, lazy cat with the caption _this is you_ , and Osamu loses his nerve. 

There’s a picture that Osamu has saved on his phone from the summer of Suna against the backdrop of the setting sun. They’d gone to the beach with Atsumu and Ginjima on a whim because it’d been swelteringly hot and none of them had really taken much of a break from anything in a long time, besides. They stayed there most of the day, and by the time the sun was setting, they’d run out of things to do, and Suna, bored and listless, had decided to go for a walk. Osamu still isn’t quite sure why he followed, because it’s not like Suna asked, but Suna didn’t tell him to leave either. Osamu remembers Suna walking right along the waterline, toes just out of reach of the waves that washed ashore, remembers how he was backlit against the fierce orange of the sky, the warm rays catching on strands of his hair like a halo. Osamu remembers, too, reaching out on an impulse with his heart in his throat to grab Suna’s wrist like he’d run away if Osamu didn’t hold onto him somehow, and Suna had looked over at him, surprised, and then he’d laughed like he could tell Osamu was thinking something stupid and irrational. And then, another impulse: Osamu took out his phone and snapped a picture of Suna without thinking about it, and Suna’s eyes went wide as he tried to snatch Osamu’s phone from him, threatening to delete it, but Suna ended up humming and conceding, _well, at least it’s a nice picture, I guess_.

Osamu feels a little like he’s a kid playing house sometimes, pretending like this charade is the real thing, pretending like just because Suna sometimes crawls into his bed at night, he has the right to anything more. Like it’s just a game, and all he has to show for it is this: a picture of Suna, warm and sun-kissed, laughing without fear, a picture in which, if Osamu squints, he can just trick himself into thinking that Suna’s holding his hand like he means it.

  
  
  


The thing is, if Osamu’s honest with himself, he probably should’ve known he’d be doomed from the start. He just didn’t want to think about what that meant. 

The thing is, if Osamu’s honest with himself, he’s probably always paid just a little too much attention to Suna, to the way the corner of Suna’s mouth turns up right before he delivers some kind of sly, clever quip, the way that Suna wakes up looking soft and sweet, hair sticking up in every direction because he never lets it dry properly before passing out, the way that Suna’s nimble, steady hands cradled Osamu’s to patch them up with a roll of athletic tape when Osamu jammed a finger during a match, back in high school. There are so many little, inconsequential things that Osamu remembers about Suna—that Suna always craves ice cream on the coldest days of winter, that Suna can’t fall asleep in any kind of moving vehicle, that Suna had horrible, embarrassing bangs until he was twelve years old. He remembers the first time he saw Suna laugh, partway through their first year when Osamu had given Atsumu a black eye. He remembers the first time he saw Suna cry, a handful of months later during their summer training camp, sitting out on the stoop in front of the school in the dead of night, lonely and homesick. He remembers the first time Suna kissed him, on New Year’s, just less than a month shy of Suna’s twentieth birthday, Suna tugging him close by the collar of his shirt as fireworks went off somewhere in the distance. 

“For luck,” Suna had said at the time, and Osamu had laughed, like nothing would ever come of it, like it could ever have been that simple. 

Osamu remembers all these things, because suddenly they all feel so big and significant in his field of vision, and he wonders if Suna ever thinks about any of it at all. He wonders what he’d do if the answer were _no_.

  
  
  


On a Thursday, during the off-season, Suna comes to stay with Osamu for a week, shows up with nothing more than half an hour’s notice and a text that reads _spare key still under the mat?_ He doesn’t say why he’s here and doesn’t fuss that Osamu can’t exactly drop everything to spend time with him, and when Osamu comes home that first night, it’s to the sight of Suna standing in the middle of his kitchen wearing a t-shirt stolen from Osamu’s closet and eating the last of his cookie dough ice cream straight from the tub. It’s the fact that Osamu can’t even bring himself to be mad about it even though he’d been saving it because he’s so charmed by how very domestic the scene feels that almost makes him trip over his own feet. He’s tempted to call it a fluke, but it happens again, a couple days later, when he comes home to Suna painting his nails in the middle of the living room, singing along to some shitty pop song, loud and completely off-key. And again, a couple days after that, when it’s Osamu’s monthly Monday off from work and Suna’s lying across Osamu’s couch with his head in Osamu’s lap _tap-tap-tapping_ away on his phone, and he snickers at something in a way that makes his nose crinkle, in a way that shouldn’t make Osamu’s chest feel as tight as it does, and Osamu finally thinks to himself that enough is enough. 

“Hey, Suna,” Osamu says quietly, just audible over the movie that neither of them are watching anymore. 

Suna hums and arches an eyebrow at Osamu, expectant. His gaze is soft and a little sleepy and Osamu wants to live in this moment forever, wants to live in a version of the world where he hasn’t yet fucked everything up by asking Suna for something he’s never been sure Suna wants to give.

“Hmm?” 

It’s a simple request, really, what Osamu’s managed to come up with in the four and a half weeks since he last saw Suna, but it feels monumental. Osamu takes a breath to steady himself and smiles, hoping it looks anywhere near as easy and casual as he wishes he felt. 

“Let’s get dinner,” he says, which is fine, normal, but then he adds, “My treat.”

The look Suna gives him in response is playful and teasing, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. “What, like a date?” he asks.

Suna says it like it’s a joke, like Osamu’s just pulling his leg and Suna’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Osamu still can’t tell what Suna wants from him. But Osamu’s tired of trying to guess, and so he reaches to brush Suna’s hair out of his face with gentle fingers, the kind of stupid, sweet thing he’s spent all this time trying to push aside because it just seemed easier, somehow. Suna’s eyes widen, just barely, and the lines in his face shift almost imperceptibly, but Osamu thinks, if he really looks for it, that Suna almost looks a little like he’s afraid. 

“Yeah,” Osamu says, and yes, okay, maybe his voice is a little shaky, but he’s never been in love before and he’s still learning how to handle it. “Yeah, like a date.”

For an agonizingly long moment, Suna just stares up at him, expression schooled into something blank and unreadable, and then he sits up slowly and turns to face Osamu, every movement careful like there’s suddenly a wild animal in the room he doesn’t want to startle, and Osamu realizes that he’s never seen Suna like this before, so cautious, so cagey. After a minute, Suna looks away, fingers restless in his lap. 

“I’m a terrible date, you know,” Suna says finally, quietly, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. 

Suna’s gaze flicks back to Osamu, and this time, he’s sure that Suna looks at least a little bit scared and feels something jar loose in his chest. Feeling emboldened, Osamu lifts a hand to brush Suna’s cheek, notices the short, sharp breath that Suna takes, the way that his bottom lip trembles, just a touch, even as his eyes remain steady, like he’s daring Osamu to do it, a leap of faith. Osamu tucks Suna’s hair back behind his ear and lets his hand rest at the nape of Suna’s neck, fingers fiddling idly with the soft, short hair there. 

“I know,” Osamu says, and he does, he _does_ , and he’s never wanted Suna to be anything but this. “So, what do you say? Will you let me buy you dinner?”

Suna narrows his eyes, refusing to look away even as his face flushes, just a little, a faint dusting of pink across his sharp cheekbones. “Fine,” he says. And then, after a moment, with a completely straight face, asks, “What’s the most expensive restaurant around here?”

Osamu bursts out laughing, a bubble of fondness blooming somewhere behind his ribs. “Suna!”

Suna’s mostly joking, Osamu knows, but Suna crosses his arms and pouts anyway. “I warned you,” he says, almost petulant, and Osamu’s struck, suddenly, by the thought that Suna’s maybe trying to scare him off, even now, this knee-jerk defense mechanism he can’t quite let go of. Osamu wonders who, exactly, has been the bigger coward all this time. 

Osamu cradles Suna’s face gently in his hands, leaning in to press a kiss to Suna’s mouth, quick and sweet and chaste, and he says softly, earnestly, “If that’s what you really want.”

Suna shoves half-heartedly at Osamu’s chest, blush spreading to the tips of his ears. “Sap,” he says, but he doesn’t push Osamu away when Osamu leans in to kiss him again, instead reaching out to cling to Osamu’s shirt like he’s afraid Osamu will disappear if he doesn’t find some kind of purchase. But in the end, Osamu thinks, they’re probably both done running away.

  
  
  


Miya Osamu is fifteen when he meets Suna Rintarou, sixteen when he decides that Suna is, in fact, quite pretty. He’s twenty when he learns the feeling of Suna’s mouth on his, twenty-one when he learns the feeling of Suna’s mouth everywhere else. He’s twenty-two when things start to get complicated. 

Miya Osamu is twenty-three when he wakes up in the late summer and being in love is the easiest thing he’s ever done. Suna’s been staying with him, on and off, for the past couple months during the off-season, and Osamu wakes up most mornings with Suna tangled all around him, a careless leg thrown over his hip or a lazy arm looped around his waist, and when Osamu tries to get out of bed to start his day, Suna grumbles and rolls more of his weight onto Osamu, effectively trapping him. The feeling of Suna on top of him isn’t anything new, but this is, Suna’s soft, sleepy breaths tickling at his collarbones, relaxed and unhurried, Suna holding him just to hold him. 

“I gotta go to work,” Osamu says around a laugh. And then, when Suna doesn’t move, “Rin, c’mon. Lemme go.”

Suna shakes his head and presses his face into Osamu’s neck, if anything shifting even more of his weight onto Osamu. Osamu laughs again, running his fingers through Suna’s hair, and lets himself indulge for a few minutes more. Soon, he really will have to get up to get dressed and get a jump on the new day—there’s rice to be prepped and vegetables to be chopped and he needs to decide what to make today’s lunch special. Soon, he’ll get out of bed and Suna will whine and fuss but this time, he’ll let Osamu go, stealing a kiss for good measure before he does. Osamu will leave his apartment half an hour later with breakfast and coffee waiting for Suna, and usually, an hour or so after that, when Osamu’s serving the first handful of customers through his door, his phone will light up with a text from Suna, the message popping up against the backdrop of that picture of Suna, the sun, and all the love that Osamu realizes was there all along, that snuck in when he wasn’t paying attention.

They do this every morning, like it’s an old running joke, like it’s a game, but this one, at least, is one that Osamu doesn’t mind playing.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to the mods for organizing this event! it's been a blast!!
> 
> and thank you for reading!! any comments/kudos are so very appreciated!
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://youichi-kuramochi.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/kura_ryous) if you feel so inclined!


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